In The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche writes favorably toward Buddhism, especially in comparison with Christianity. But Nietzsche probably only had a superficial understanding of Buddhism (and he never mentions Zen at all), which was just becoming widely known in Europe during his lifetime. Nevertheless, one does not have to know everything about a systemic discipline or perspective in order for that system to match much of one’s personal beliefs, arrived at independently.
In Nietzsche and Zen: Self-Overcoming Without A Self (2011) by Andre van der Braak the reader is introduced to numerous similarities (as well as differences) between the German philosopher and the ancient religion. The two are not an exact fit, but van der Braak has done a decent job of bringing to light the importance of self-overcoming to both sources and in delineating the specifics of this essential concept to understanding Nietzsche’s theory of psychology.
In brief, though the specifics differ, Nietzsche agrees with not only Zen but also the recent findings of neuroscience that the “folk psychology” idea of a singular, constant “self” is mistaken. For Nietzsche, what you and I see as our “self” is really a multiplicity of drives competing with one another inside our brains. I will focus in this review on what van der Braak has to say about Nietzsche’s psychology more so than his impressions about how it relates to Zen. I will quote liberally from this excellent book, quoting the source notations as van der Braak does (AC is the notation for The Antichrist, BGE for Beyond Good and Evil, etc.), but I won’t bother the reader about what each one stands for. See the book for that.
“The peculiar and paradoxical thing is that both Nietzsche and Zen also deny that any such thing as a self ultimately exists. Their self-overcoming is therefore a self-overcoming without a self. As far as Zen is concerned, this may be obvious: that idea of non self (anatman) is crucial to all Buddhist traditions. But also for Nietzsche, what we call a self is ultimately a fiction.” (page xxviii) I might point out that Buddhism emerged out of Hinduism and anatman is originally a Hindu concept.
“Nietzsche considers Buddhism here as far superior because as a ‘positivist religion,’ it is ‘a hundred times more realistic (AC 20). It knows the true causes of suffering and offers a physiological therapy for suffering that works. Christianity, on the other hand, interprets suffering as sin (an imaginary concept according to Nietzsche), and offers no therapy, but only faith, hope, and love as a bandage. Buddhism reaches its goal in contrast to Christianity, which considers the highest form unattainable, a gift, grace. As Nietzsche summarizes: ‘Buddhism doesn’t promise but delivers, Christianity promises everything but doesn’t delivery anything (AC 42). Whereas Buddhism fights resentment, Christianity originates from it.” (page 5)
Though Nietzsche still considered Buddhism, like Christianity, to be a ‘nihilistic religion,’ he obviously had more respect for it than Christianity. But religion was something that has to be overcome, transvalued into something beyond all ideas of fixed “truths.” This is obviously a very Zen-like point of view. Skepticism is highly valued in both sources.
“Nihilism now looms large: if there is no truth, there is no ultimate value, no goal, and nothing to pursue. The only thing that seems to be left is a will to nothingness: man would rather will nothingness than not will at all. For Nietzsche, such a will to nothingness can be found in Schopenhauer and in Buddhist nirvana. This is what he calls ‘passive nihilism.’ As a remedy, Nietzsche advocates a practice of active nihilism: an effort to push oneself and others more deeply into nihilism, ruthlessly confronting and exposing any hidden need for security, any grasping at metaphysical concepts, any clinging to a fixed perspective. Active nihilism means pushing nihilism to its limits, toward the self-overcoming of nihilism. Active nihilism implies the further deconstruction of the essential notion of truth as a ‘thing,’ as a particular insight into the true nature of reality. It also refers to the further deconstruction of teleology: there is no goal, no ultimate value.” (page 38)
“Strong skepticism refers to a new truth practice, aimed not at discovering static truths about reality, but at becoming a strong, healthy, and truthful person. In this sense this new truth practice has a strong ethical component. Truth must not be understood from an epistemological but an ethical perspective. One’s words and deeds stem from one’s character. Therefore, there is a virtual-ethical need for self-cultivation, to harmonize the hierarchical multiplicity of one’s drives into a unity.” (page 50)
Nietzsche was a champion of physicality over anything metaphysical. The multiplicity of self is based in the body and is composed of various “drives” (or instincts or motivations) that, taken together, are the will to power. “For Nietzsche, the body seems more fundamental than mind or spirit. But it is not so much that the body is higher or more important than the mind; in an important sense, what we usually call ‘the mind’ is simply shorthand for something about the body: ‘There are only bodily states: mental ones are consequences and symbolism. (KSA 10, 9 [41]).” (page 60)
“Throughout his work, Nietzsche stresses that body-mind dualism itself is an unhealthy, life-negating perspective that must be overcome and replaced by a more healthy and even ‘higher’ perspective: both body and mind, as well as nature as a whole, are to be interpreted as will to power. This amounts to a naturalism that is not reductionism. Whenever Nietzsche speaks of the body, it is not just the physiological body, but the body as will to power that he refers to. The body is for Nietzsche something much higher and complex than we usually assume (KSA 10, 7 [133]); it contains the mental functions as well. All conscious processes of thinking and knowing are a result of underlying physiological drives.” (page 64)
Nietzsche’s “higher man” that he often writes about is really someone who understands the inner workings of their collection of drives. “For Nietzsche the awakened perspective refers to experiencing oneself not as a combination of two substances, body and soul, but as the multiplicity of will to power. The ‘one who knows’ is capable of a perspective from a higher vantage point, a perspective ‘from above.’” (page 65)
The concept of the “self” is mistaken but it is still useful, it has utilitarian value, which is why it has become so ingrained within us. “According to Nietzsche, we experience a world that is characterized by continuity, stability, substances, a self, a free will, irrespective of whether this is actually the case. The reason for this is that these illusions have proven to be of evolutionary benefit, and they have become second nature to us. Certain ways of perceiving and experiencing reality become incorporated over time, when they acquire, through repetition, a kind of solidity and power over us. They become instinctual.” (page 66)
Another aspect of the “higher man” is that he/she is just that, higher. Not all human beings are capable of understanding or accepting the reality of our psychology. They still require pre-packaged illusions to make it through life. “’Truth’ should be seen here not as something to be discovered, but as something being created in the ongoing digestion and interpretation of experience. This means that not everyone is capable of knowledge to the same extent. Just as it takes a strong digestion to be able to consume certain food, one’s state of bodily drives determines which types of experience one is able to digest and which perspectives one is able to inhabit. Nietzsche distinguishes an order of rank in perspectives.” (page 67)
Those of us capable of attaining genuine psychological insights arrive at such mastery through a personal journey of phases. “The first phase in such a process of cultivation, a phase characterized by discipline, asceticism, and self-mastery, is to place the body into a special form or posture. Gradually, the posture becomes second nature – second nature in Nietzsche’s sense as a protective skin that allows the first nature to develop unhindered. A process of incorporation, in Nietzsche’s terms, takes place, a movement from consciousness to instinct. This instinct is further refined through protracted discipline (as is apparent for example in martial arts practice).
“The second phase of self-cultivation consists of relaxing the discipline )’giving the drives free reign’), and trusting a natural spontaneity to emerge. One allows the first nature to play out freely. In Nietzschean terms, the ‘I,’ a dominant drive which usually controls the other drives, that has learned to function harmonically (or more accurately, agnostically: their continued mutual struggle allows for a dynamic equilibrium). Therefore, a dualistic approach to self-cultivation (where mid seems to cultivate the body) is the beginning but not the end.” (page 74)
Nietzsche was notorious for never spelling out an exact path for attaining such mastery. His books are very much sources of critique and inspiration for the journey rather than defined roadmaps like just about every other philosopher or teacher wants make you follow. “…he is vague about what such a practice would look like. Although he stresses the importance of incorporating new perspectives, in his writings no clear instructions for any somatic practice can be found. Although Nietzsche himself often walked eight hours a day while writing his books, anything like zazen remained utterly foreign to him. We could charitably interpret Nietzsche’s daily walks as a practice of self-cultivation of the body, creating a situation where the drives are able to cultivate themselves freely.” (page 78)
Our multiplicity places human consciousness on a proper footing, as largely overrated by folk psychology. “For Nietzsche, however, thinking is not an activity performed by a subject but an autonomous activity: ‘a thought comes when ‘it’ want to, not when ‘I’ want to (BGE 17). We add a doer to the deed, but that is a projection performed afterwards. Actually it is the body that thinks, and consciousness is an impotent by-product instead of causally effective agent. The importance that we tend to give to consciousness is misplaced: it operates in function of a ‘much higher and overviewing intellect,’ in whose service the conscious ego is but a tool (KSA 10, 24 [16]). Self-consciousness arrives very late on the scene as an almost superfluous afterthought…Our conscious ‘I’ is an instrument of other processes. For Nietzsche, conscious thought is nothing but the expression of a multiplicity of drives.” (pp. 83 – 84)
Then van der Braak begins to delve deeper into how, exactly, it is possible to undertake self-overcoming without a self to do the work. “Self-overcoming is not a personal project for Nietzsche: ultimately it is a matter of life overcoming itself in and through the individual. The individual is merely the arena in which such an impersonal process plays itself out. For Nietzsche, the task of self-overcoming is not undertaken by a subject; it is part of the self-overcoming of life. And since the individual, conceived as a constellation of drives, is ultimately part if his entire archaic heritage and part of entire nature, self-overcoming ultimately turns out to be a cosmic affair…Earlier, Zarathustra had already said that ‘man is something that shale be overcome’ (TSZ Prologue, 3). Now, he reveals that life is ‘that which must always overcome itself’ (TSZ II, 12).
“This continual flux of self-overcoming is fundamentally a creative activity: ‘Becoming as inventing, willing, negating the self, as self-overcoming: no subject, but a doing, positive, creative’ (KSA 12, 7 [54]). Individual self-overcoming now comes down to allowing the flux of self-overcoming to work through oneself, unhindered by any notion of teleology.” (page 88)
“For Nietzsche, the attainment of self-mastery is only the first step on the way to self-overcoming. The first phase is a ‘preschooling in spirituality,’ which consists of ‘gaining control over the restraining instincts’ (TI 8, 6). One loses such spirit and self-control when one has become strong enough and no longer needs it (TI 10, 14). At that point, one can ‘give back to the drives their freedom’ so that they will now ‘go where our best inclines’ (KAS 12, 1 [122]). Therefore, whereas self-mastery is the first step, forgetting the self is the second and final step of self-overcoming.” (page 90)
“When it comes to cultivation, there is no conscious subject that prunes a garden of drives according to some blueprint. Drives have their own telic structure. Self-overcoming takes place in the context of a hierarchical organizational process of the drives. Some individual drives form a hierarchy that allows some drives to redirect others so that the total can achieve a singular expression. One metaphor for such a process would be a football team, in which players can adjust each other and players can take the role of captain in turn.” (page 91)
“Self-overcoming seems to be all about creating the right circumstances for body and spirit. The advice that Nietzsche gives is in terms of nutrition (in the widest sense of the word): ‘how do you personally have to nourish yourself in order to attain your maximum strength, of virtu in the Renaissance style, of moraline-free virtue’ (EH II, 1)…Nietzsche continues to take on the subjects of place, climate, and relaxation.
“Nietzsche stresses the absence of any struggle and describes self-overcoming as a physiological and subconscious process, something that grows within and underneath the surface of consciousness. Nietzsche describes ‘know thyself’ as a recipe for ruin. In order to become what one is, one has to have no idea of who one is and a distance from all great imperatives.
“‘Becoming what you are presupposes that you have not the slightest inkling what you are. From this point of view even life’s mistakes have their own sense and value, the temporary byways and detours, the delays, the ‘modesties,’ the seriousness wasted on tasks beyond the task. […] where [know thyself] would be the recipe for decline, then forgetting yourself, misunderstanding yourself, belittling, constricting, mediocritizing yourself becomes good sense itself. […] You need to keep the whole surface of consciousness – consciousness is a surface – untainted by any of the great imperatives.’ (EH II, 9).” (pp. 93 – 94)
Importantly, self-overcoming is a process that must become a habit, because it never stops. For that reason, self-overcoming and “Becoming” are forever present to the higher man. Pitfalls to watch out for include seeking to be aesthetically anesthetized and general negativity (leading to resentment). In their place, Nietzsche takes his inspiration from the Greek god Dionysus and the concept of amor fati (leading to ecstatic affirmation).
“Nietzsche distinguishes two forms of redemption that he considers inadequate and even damaging answers to the reality of existential suffering. The first is redemption as a narcotic anesthetic for the weak who cannot handle suffering. Both religion and art offer such anesthetic, for example, by promising an unio mystica, the Wagnerian intoxication, or Schopenhauer’s aesthetic form of redemption. Secondly, redemption also refers to an escape from suffering for the stronger persons, those with a will strong enough to dedicate themselves to ascetic practices. This kind of redemption originates from a weak pessimism, that judges life as negative.” (page 110)
“Dionysian redemption refers to being healed from the spirit of revenge and resentment. Revenge, an attitude that refuses to justify the past, needs to be replaced by amor fati: an attitude that considers all of life justified and worthy of ecstatic affirmation. But in order to realize such an attitude of amor fati, the will itself (which is for Nietzsche always the will to power) must be liberated from revenge. It must be able to passionately embrace the horrifying thought of eternal recurrence” everything will recur ad infinitum, exactly as it is right now.” (page 115)
“He describes Dionysus as ‘a type that takes into itself and redeems the contradictions and questionable elements of existence,’ as opposed to the type of ‘the Crucified,’ the redeemer that Paul created (KSA, 13, 14 [89]). Both the suffering of Christ and that of Dionysus redeem, but in a different sense. The suffering of Christ serves to liberate man from sin; the suffering of Dionysus is an ecstatic expression of the fullness and richness of life, not an objection to life but its celebration. In this way, life is redeemed in the sense of the justified.” (page 116)
Despite being vehemently anti-Christian, Nietzsche, nevertheless, held positive views about much of his Judeo-Christian heritage. He chose the concept of “redemption” because he was familiar with its context within Christianity, and it was, to him, a solution to suffering. Indeed, one could argue that redemption as he uses it is an outstanding “transvaluation.” And such tranvaluations are necessary (Nietzsche envisioned a long project on this subject as “The Will to Power” which was never completed) because the higher man understands the weight that is on his/her shoulders. Far from being an “anything goes” world after the death of God, it is a world ladened with responsibility.
“When there is no God above oneself, no one to abdicate responsibility to, the innocence of becoming is restored. But this is not a passive state of self-forgiveness. Nietzsche speaks about great responsibility, about giving oneself the right to act.” (apge 136)
The author compares the teachings of several Zen masters with Nietzsche throughout his book. The strongest comparison can be found with the teachings of Nishitani, who wrote such outstanding philosophical works as Religion and Nothingness. Nietzsche’s bewildering concept of “the eternal return of the same” might best be understood form a Zen perspective.
“Amor fait is connected with the incorporation of the thought of eternal recurrence. Nishitani interprets eternal recurrence as the intuitive experience of insight into eternity from within the world of becoming, as ek-stasis, an experience of the eternal present. Suffering is transformed into joy as lead is alchemically transformed into gold. There is divine life in a new and Dionysian sense in a world without God. One must have wings to get out of the abyss: the wings of eros.
“Embracing the thought of eternal recurrence means stepping out of the frame of self. Conquering the spirit of gravity involves conquering the voice of skepticism that insists that escaping the boundaries of the self is not impossible. The frame of the self, in which all things thrown high fall back on oneself, is broken through. The entire world process now becomes the activity of the self-s will: ‘the world worlds,’ Nishitani adds with a Heideggerian flourish. Those who can’t step out of the frame of the self are invalids. One has to turn one’s abyss inside out into the light.” (page 147)
“Thinking through the thought of eternal recurrence is the most extreme form of nihilism, a European Buddhism. This is why Nietzsche philosophizes with the hammer. Only those who can bear the thought of eternal recurrence courageously and without deception in order to consummate their nihilism will be able to attain the will to the revaluation of values and absolute affirmation. Nihilism is both a crisis and a turning point. Breaking through to a Dionysian stance toward existence (amor fati) could be called the redemption of Nietzsche’s new ‘religion.’ Nishitani stresses that this new religion is, just like Zen, a religion of laughter.” (page 147)
The author closes by reflecting on the body of Nietzsche’s work and understanding that Nietzsche did not write to explain so much as he wrote to teach through the act of reading him. Like the brilliant college professor he once was his books were meant to be classes on different levels. “Nietzsche the teacher uses a threefold layer of communications with his audience. At the first, literary level, Nietzsche tries to evoke interest in his audience in his teachings. We recognize this, for example, in his new prefaces of 1886 and in Ecce Homo. Nietzsche is advertising himself and his works, just as Plato is advertising himself and his particular view of what it means to philosophize (against the Sophists) in his dialogues. At the second, exoteric level, Nietzsche attempts to educate his readers by presenting them with new perspectives that force them to think through their preconceptions and presuppositions. Examples of this level can be found in Beyond Good and Evil and The Antichrist.
“At the third, esoteric level, Nietzsche attempts to express an experience ‘from a height’ in order to induce it in the reader by presenting him with a symbolic language could be found in the Dionysian mystery religions, such a symbolic language could be found in the Dionysian dithyrambs. In the mysteries, as Aristotle noted, the aim is not to teach something, but to have the initiated undergo as experience. Examples of this level can be found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which Nietzsche calls a dithyramb in Ecce Homo.” (page 171)
The author thinks that, in his way, Nietzsche was a Zen master of sorts. He did not say do this and do that and you’ll be fine. There are few "thou shall not’s" either. He understood that self-overcoming without a self means that is perpetual. Everything eventually must be overcome and there’s no end to it. That is why life is so fundamentally joyous. The delight of Becoming is without end. Nietzsche would often use “dancing” as an metaphor for this realization. And due to their inherent perpetual nature, self-overcoming and self-mastery mean eventually overcoming even Nietzsche’s most prized concept itself. How very Zen of him.
“Nietzsche used the notion of will to power as an exoteric notion that ultimately needs to be left behind. In Zen language, the will to power is empty. Perhaps we can learn from the Zen askesis: at some point it becomes necessary to ‘kill the will to power.’ Nietzsche researchers need to kill the will to power and liberate themselves from the chains of Heidegger’s influential Nietzsche interpretation that centered around the will to power.” (page 172)
Nietzsche, according to van der Braak, is far more expansive about self-overcoming than mere “western” thinkers can grasp. Perhaps we could all benefit from a more "eastern" perspective when approaching what this philosopher has to say about the self and becoming.
In Nietzsche and Zen: Self-Overcoming Without A Self (2011) by Andre van der Braak the reader is introduced to numerous similarities (as well as differences) between the German philosopher and the ancient religion. The two are not an exact fit, but van der Braak has done a decent job of bringing to light the importance of self-overcoming to both sources and in delineating the specifics of this essential concept to understanding Nietzsche’s theory of psychology.
In brief, though the specifics differ, Nietzsche agrees with not only Zen but also the recent findings of neuroscience that the “folk psychology” idea of a singular, constant “self” is mistaken. For Nietzsche, what you and I see as our “self” is really a multiplicity of drives competing with one another inside our brains. I will focus in this review on what van der Braak has to say about Nietzsche’s psychology more so than his impressions about how it relates to Zen. I will quote liberally from this excellent book, quoting the source notations as van der Braak does (AC is the notation for The Antichrist, BGE for Beyond Good and Evil, etc.), but I won’t bother the reader about what each one stands for. See the book for that.
“The peculiar and paradoxical thing is that both Nietzsche and Zen also deny that any such thing as a self ultimately exists. Their self-overcoming is therefore a self-overcoming without a self. As far as Zen is concerned, this may be obvious: that idea of non self (anatman) is crucial to all Buddhist traditions. But also for Nietzsche, what we call a self is ultimately a fiction.” (page xxviii) I might point out that Buddhism emerged out of Hinduism and anatman is originally a Hindu concept.
“Nietzsche considers Buddhism here as far superior because as a ‘positivist religion,’ it is ‘a hundred times more realistic (AC 20). It knows the true causes of suffering and offers a physiological therapy for suffering that works. Christianity, on the other hand, interprets suffering as sin (an imaginary concept according to Nietzsche), and offers no therapy, but only faith, hope, and love as a bandage. Buddhism reaches its goal in contrast to Christianity, which considers the highest form unattainable, a gift, grace. As Nietzsche summarizes: ‘Buddhism doesn’t promise but delivers, Christianity promises everything but doesn’t delivery anything (AC 42). Whereas Buddhism fights resentment, Christianity originates from it.” (page 5)
Though Nietzsche still considered Buddhism, like Christianity, to be a ‘nihilistic religion,’ he obviously had more respect for it than Christianity. But religion was something that has to be overcome, transvalued into something beyond all ideas of fixed “truths.” This is obviously a very Zen-like point of view. Skepticism is highly valued in both sources.
“Nihilism now looms large: if there is no truth, there is no ultimate value, no goal, and nothing to pursue. The only thing that seems to be left is a will to nothingness: man would rather will nothingness than not will at all. For Nietzsche, such a will to nothingness can be found in Schopenhauer and in Buddhist nirvana. This is what he calls ‘passive nihilism.’ As a remedy, Nietzsche advocates a practice of active nihilism: an effort to push oneself and others more deeply into nihilism, ruthlessly confronting and exposing any hidden need for security, any grasping at metaphysical concepts, any clinging to a fixed perspective. Active nihilism means pushing nihilism to its limits, toward the self-overcoming of nihilism. Active nihilism implies the further deconstruction of the essential notion of truth as a ‘thing,’ as a particular insight into the true nature of reality. It also refers to the further deconstruction of teleology: there is no goal, no ultimate value.” (page 38)
“Strong skepticism refers to a new truth practice, aimed not at discovering static truths about reality, but at becoming a strong, healthy, and truthful person. In this sense this new truth practice has a strong ethical component. Truth must not be understood from an epistemological but an ethical perspective. One’s words and deeds stem from one’s character. Therefore, there is a virtual-ethical need for self-cultivation, to harmonize the hierarchical multiplicity of one’s drives into a unity.” (page 50)
Nietzsche was a champion of physicality over anything metaphysical. The multiplicity of self is based in the body and is composed of various “drives” (or instincts or motivations) that, taken together, are the will to power. “For Nietzsche, the body seems more fundamental than mind or spirit. But it is not so much that the body is higher or more important than the mind; in an important sense, what we usually call ‘the mind’ is simply shorthand for something about the body: ‘There are only bodily states: mental ones are consequences and symbolism. (KSA 10, 9 [41]).” (page 60)
“Throughout his work, Nietzsche stresses that body-mind dualism itself is an unhealthy, life-negating perspective that must be overcome and replaced by a more healthy and even ‘higher’ perspective: both body and mind, as well as nature as a whole, are to be interpreted as will to power. This amounts to a naturalism that is not reductionism. Whenever Nietzsche speaks of the body, it is not just the physiological body, but the body as will to power that he refers to. The body is for Nietzsche something much higher and complex than we usually assume (KSA 10, 7 [133]); it contains the mental functions as well. All conscious processes of thinking and knowing are a result of underlying physiological drives.” (page 64)
Nietzsche’s “higher man” that he often writes about is really someone who understands the inner workings of their collection of drives. “For Nietzsche the awakened perspective refers to experiencing oneself not as a combination of two substances, body and soul, but as the multiplicity of will to power. The ‘one who knows’ is capable of a perspective from a higher vantage point, a perspective ‘from above.’” (page 65)
The concept of the “self” is mistaken but it is still useful, it has utilitarian value, which is why it has become so ingrained within us. “According to Nietzsche, we experience a world that is characterized by continuity, stability, substances, a self, a free will, irrespective of whether this is actually the case. The reason for this is that these illusions have proven to be of evolutionary benefit, and they have become second nature to us. Certain ways of perceiving and experiencing reality become incorporated over time, when they acquire, through repetition, a kind of solidity and power over us. They become instinctual.” (page 66)
Another aspect of the “higher man” is that he/she is just that, higher. Not all human beings are capable of understanding or accepting the reality of our psychology. They still require pre-packaged illusions to make it through life. “’Truth’ should be seen here not as something to be discovered, but as something being created in the ongoing digestion and interpretation of experience. This means that not everyone is capable of knowledge to the same extent. Just as it takes a strong digestion to be able to consume certain food, one’s state of bodily drives determines which types of experience one is able to digest and which perspectives one is able to inhabit. Nietzsche distinguishes an order of rank in perspectives.” (page 67)
Those of us capable of attaining genuine psychological insights arrive at such mastery through a personal journey of phases. “The first phase in such a process of cultivation, a phase characterized by discipline, asceticism, and self-mastery, is to place the body into a special form or posture. Gradually, the posture becomes second nature – second nature in Nietzsche’s sense as a protective skin that allows the first nature to develop unhindered. A process of incorporation, in Nietzsche’s terms, takes place, a movement from consciousness to instinct. This instinct is further refined through protracted discipline (as is apparent for example in martial arts practice).
“The second phase of self-cultivation consists of relaxing the discipline )’giving the drives free reign’), and trusting a natural spontaneity to emerge. One allows the first nature to play out freely. In Nietzschean terms, the ‘I,’ a dominant drive which usually controls the other drives, that has learned to function harmonically (or more accurately, agnostically: their continued mutual struggle allows for a dynamic equilibrium). Therefore, a dualistic approach to self-cultivation (where mid seems to cultivate the body) is the beginning but not the end.” (page 74)
Nietzsche was notorious for never spelling out an exact path for attaining such mastery. His books are very much sources of critique and inspiration for the journey rather than defined roadmaps like just about every other philosopher or teacher wants make you follow. “…he is vague about what such a practice would look like. Although he stresses the importance of incorporating new perspectives, in his writings no clear instructions for any somatic practice can be found. Although Nietzsche himself often walked eight hours a day while writing his books, anything like zazen remained utterly foreign to him. We could charitably interpret Nietzsche’s daily walks as a practice of self-cultivation of the body, creating a situation where the drives are able to cultivate themselves freely.” (page 78)
Our multiplicity places human consciousness on a proper footing, as largely overrated by folk psychology. “For Nietzsche, however, thinking is not an activity performed by a subject but an autonomous activity: ‘a thought comes when ‘it’ want to, not when ‘I’ want to (BGE 17). We add a doer to the deed, but that is a projection performed afterwards. Actually it is the body that thinks, and consciousness is an impotent by-product instead of causally effective agent. The importance that we tend to give to consciousness is misplaced: it operates in function of a ‘much higher and overviewing intellect,’ in whose service the conscious ego is but a tool (KSA 10, 24 [16]). Self-consciousness arrives very late on the scene as an almost superfluous afterthought…Our conscious ‘I’ is an instrument of other processes. For Nietzsche, conscious thought is nothing but the expression of a multiplicity of drives.” (pp. 83 – 84)
Then van der Braak begins to delve deeper into how, exactly, it is possible to undertake self-overcoming without a self to do the work. “Self-overcoming is not a personal project for Nietzsche: ultimately it is a matter of life overcoming itself in and through the individual. The individual is merely the arena in which such an impersonal process plays itself out. For Nietzsche, the task of self-overcoming is not undertaken by a subject; it is part of the self-overcoming of life. And since the individual, conceived as a constellation of drives, is ultimately part if his entire archaic heritage and part of entire nature, self-overcoming ultimately turns out to be a cosmic affair…Earlier, Zarathustra had already said that ‘man is something that shale be overcome’ (TSZ Prologue, 3). Now, he reveals that life is ‘that which must always overcome itself’ (TSZ II, 12).
“This continual flux of self-overcoming is fundamentally a creative activity: ‘Becoming as inventing, willing, negating the self, as self-overcoming: no subject, but a doing, positive, creative’ (KSA 12, 7 [54]). Individual self-overcoming now comes down to allowing the flux of self-overcoming to work through oneself, unhindered by any notion of teleology.” (page 88)
“For Nietzsche, the attainment of self-mastery is only the first step on the way to self-overcoming. The first phase is a ‘preschooling in spirituality,’ which consists of ‘gaining control over the restraining instincts’ (TI 8, 6). One loses such spirit and self-control when one has become strong enough and no longer needs it (TI 10, 14). At that point, one can ‘give back to the drives their freedom’ so that they will now ‘go where our best inclines’ (KAS 12, 1 [122]). Therefore, whereas self-mastery is the first step, forgetting the self is the second and final step of self-overcoming.” (page 90)
“When it comes to cultivation, there is no conscious subject that prunes a garden of drives according to some blueprint. Drives have their own telic structure. Self-overcoming takes place in the context of a hierarchical organizational process of the drives. Some individual drives form a hierarchy that allows some drives to redirect others so that the total can achieve a singular expression. One metaphor for such a process would be a football team, in which players can adjust each other and players can take the role of captain in turn.” (page 91)
“Self-overcoming seems to be all about creating the right circumstances for body and spirit. The advice that Nietzsche gives is in terms of nutrition (in the widest sense of the word): ‘how do you personally have to nourish yourself in order to attain your maximum strength, of virtu in the Renaissance style, of moraline-free virtue’ (EH II, 1)…Nietzsche continues to take on the subjects of place, climate, and relaxation.
“Nietzsche stresses the absence of any struggle and describes self-overcoming as a physiological and subconscious process, something that grows within and underneath the surface of consciousness. Nietzsche describes ‘know thyself’ as a recipe for ruin. In order to become what one is, one has to have no idea of who one is and a distance from all great imperatives.
“‘Becoming what you are presupposes that you have not the slightest inkling what you are. From this point of view even life’s mistakes have their own sense and value, the temporary byways and detours, the delays, the ‘modesties,’ the seriousness wasted on tasks beyond the task. […] where [know thyself] would be the recipe for decline, then forgetting yourself, misunderstanding yourself, belittling, constricting, mediocritizing yourself becomes good sense itself. […] You need to keep the whole surface of consciousness – consciousness is a surface – untainted by any of the great imperatives.’ (EH II, 9).” (pp. 93 – 94)
Importantly, self-overcoming is a process that must become a habit, because it never stops. For that reason, self-overcoming and “Becoming” are forever present to the higher man. Pitfalls to watch out for include seeking to be aesthetically anesthetized and general negativity (leading to resentment). In their place, Nietzsche takes his inspiration from the Greek god Dionysus and the concept of amor fati (leading to ecstatic affirmation).
“Nietzsche distinguishes two forms of redemption that he considers inadequate and even damaging answers to the reality of existential suffering. The first is redemption as a narcotic anesthetic for the weak who cannot handle suffering. Both religion and art offer such anesthetic, for example, by promising an unio mystica, the Wagnerian intoxication, or Schopenhauer’s aesthetic form of redemption. Secondly, redemption also refers to an escape from suffering for the stronger persons, those with a will strong enough to dedicate themselves to ascetic practices. This kind of redemption originates from a weak pessimism, that judges life as negative.” (page 110)
“Dionysian redemption refers to being healed from the spirit of revenge and resentment. Revenge, an attitude that refuses to justify the past, needs to be replaced by amor fati: an attitude that considers all of life justified and worthy of ecstatic affirmation. But in order to realize such an attitude of amor fati, the will itself (which is for Nietzsche always the will to power) must be liberated from revenge. It must be able to passionately embrace the horrifying thought of eternal recurrence” everything will recur ad infinitum, exactly as it is right now.” (page 115)
“He describes Dionysus as ‘a type that takes into itself and redeems the contradictions and questionable elements of existence,’ as opposed to the type of ‘the Crucified,’ the redeemer that Paul created (KSA, 13, 14 [89]). Both the suffering of Christ and that of Dionysus redeem, but in a different sense. The suffering of Christ serves to liberate man from sin; the suffering of Dionysus is an ecstatic expression of the fullness and richness of life, not an objection to life but its celebration. In this way, life is redeemed in the sense of the justified.” (page 116)
Despite being vehemently anti-Christian, Nietzsche, nevertheless, held positive views about much of his Judeo-Christian heritage. He chose the concept of “redemption” because he was familiar with its context within Christianity, and it was, to him, a solution to suffering. Indeed, one could argue that redemption as he uses it is an outstanding “transvaluation.” And such tranvaluations are necessary (Nietzsche envisioned a long project on this subject as “The Will to Power” which was never completed) because the higher man understands the weight that is on his/her shoulders. Far from being an “anything goes” world after the death of God, it is a world ladened with responsibility.
“When there is no God above oneself, no one to abdicate responsibility to, the innocence of becoming is restored. But this is not a passive state of self-forgiveness. Nietzsche speaks about great responsibility, about giving oneself the right to act.” (apge 136)
The author compares the teachings of several Zen masters with Nietzsche throughout his book. The strongest comparison can be found with the teachings of Nishitani, who wrote such outstanding philosophical works as Religion and Nothingness. Nietzsche’s bewildering concept of “the eternal return of the same” might best be understood form a Zen perspective.
“Amor fait is connected with the incorporation of the thought of eternal recurrence. Nishitani interprets eternal recurrence as the intuitive experience of insight into eternity from within the world of becoming, as ek-stasis, an experience of the eternal present. Suffering is transformed into joy as lead is alchemically transformed into gold. There is divine life in a new and Dionysian sense in a world without God. One must have wings to get out of the abyss: the wings of eros.
“Embracing the thought of eternal recurrence means stepping out of the frame of self. Conquering the spirit of gravity involves conquering the voice of skepticism that insists that escaping the boundaries of the self is not impossible. The frame of the self, in which all things thrown high fall back on oneself, is broken through. The entire world process now becomes the activity of the self-s will: ‘the world worlds,’ Nishitani adds with a Heideggerian flourish. Those who can’t step out of the frame of the self are invalids. One has to turn one’s abyss inside out into the light.” (page 147)
“Thinking through the thought of eternal recurrence is the most extreme form of nihilism, a European Buddhism. This is why Nietzsche philosophizes with the hammer. Only those who can bear the thought of eternal recurrence courageously and without deception in order to consummate their nihilism will be able to attain the will to the revaluation of values and absolute affirmation. Nihilism is both a crisis and a turning point. Breaking through to a Dionysian stance toward existence (amor fati) could be called the redemption of Nietzsche’s new ‘religion.’ Nishitani stresses that this new religion is, just like Zen, a religion of laughter.” (page 147)
The author closes by reflecting on the body of Nietzsche’s work and understanding that Nietzsche did not write to explain so much as he wrote to teach through the act of reading him. Like the brilliant college professor he once was his books were meant to be classes on different levels. “Nietzsche the teacher uses a threefold layer of communications with his audience. At the first, literary level, Nietzsche tries to evoke interest in his audience in his teachings. We recognize this, for example, in his new prefaces of 1886 and in Ecce Homo. Nietzsche is advertising himself and his works, just as Plato is advertising himself and his particular view of what it means to philosophize (against the Sophists) in his dialogues. At the second, exoteric level, Nietzsche attempts to educate his readers by presenting them with new perspectives that force them to think through their preconceptions and presuppositions. Examples of this level can be found in Beyond Good and Evil and The Antichrist.
“At the third, esoteric level, Nietzsche attempts to express an experience ‘from a height’ in order to induce it in the reader by presenting him with a symbolic language could be found in the Dionysian mystery religions, such a symbolic language could be found in the Dionysian dithyrambs. In the mysteries, as Aristotle noted, the aim is not to teach something, but to have the initiated undergo as experience. Examples of this level can be found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which Nietzsche calls a dithyramb in Ecce Homo.” (page 171)
The author thinks that, in his way, Nietzsche was a Zen master of sorts. He did not say do this and do that and you’ll be fine. There are few "thou shall not’s" either. He understood that self-overcoming without a self means that is perpetual. Everything eventually must be overcome and there’s no end to it. That is why life is so fundamentally joyous. The delight of Becoming is without end. Nietzsche would often use “dancing” as an metaphor for this realization. And due to their inherent perpetual nature, self-overcoming and self-mastery mean eventually overcoming even Nietzsche’s most prized concept itself. How very Zen of him.
“Nietzsche used the notion of will to power as an exoteric notion that ultimately needs to be left behind. In Zen language, the will to power is empty. Perhaps we can learn from the Zen askesis: at some point it becomes necessary to ‘kill the will to power.’ Nietzsche researchers need to kill the will to power and liberate themselves from the chains of Heidegger’s influential Nietzsche interpretation that centered around the will to power.” (page 172)
Nietzsche, according to van der Braak, is far more expansive about self-overcoming than mere “western” thinkers can grasp. Perhaps we could all benefit from a more "eastern" perspective when approaching what this philosopher has to say about the self and becoming.
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